The Russellville Democrat., 1887-12-21

There arc in every soumuxity and fn every church watcbdogs who feel cailea upon to keep their eyes on others ana growl. They are full of suspicion. They wonder if that man is net djshonests if that man is not unclean, if there is not something wrong about the other man. They are always the first to hear Of any thing wrong. vultures are always the first to smell carrion They are self
 appointed detectives. lay this down as
 rule, without any exception, that those
 people who have the most faults them-
 selves are the most merciless in their
 watching of others. From scalp of head
 to sole of foot they are full of jealousies
 and hypercriticisms. They spend their life in hunting for muskrats and mud-tur-
 ties, instead of hunting for Rocky Mount
 ain eagles; always for something
 mean instead of something grand.
 They look at their neighbors' imperfec-
 tions through microscope and look ae
 their own imperfections through teies-
 cope upside down. Twenty faults of
 their own do not hurt them so much as
 one fault of somebody else. Their neigh
 bors' imperfections are like gnats, and
 they strain them out; their own fmper-
 fections arc like camels, and they swai-
 low them.
 But lest some might think they escape
 the scrutiny of the text, I have to tell you
 that we all come under the Divine satire
 when we make the questions of time
 more prominent than the questions of
 eternity. Come, now, let us all go into the confessional. Are not all tempted to make the question. Where
 shah live now? greater than the ques-
 tion, Where shall live foreverf How shall get more dollars here? greater than the question, How shall 1 lay up treasures in Heavenf The quest ion, How shall l pay my debts to manY greater than the question, How shall I meet my obliga- tions to God? The question, How shall ! gain the world? greater than the ques- tion, What if lose my soul? The ques- tion, Why did God lett come into the zsorld, greater than the question, How shaii get extirpated from my nature? The question. What shall l do with the twenty, or forty or seventy years of my sublunar existence? greater than the question, What
 shall do with the millions of cycles of my post-terrestriale exis tence! Time, how
 small it is Eternity, how vast it is l The former more insignificant in comparison
 with the latter than Q gnat is insignificant
 when compared with camel. We lodged | the text We said: That doesn' t mean me, and that doesn't mean me,o and with l a ruinous benevolence we are giving the | whole sermon away.
 But let us all surrender to the charge. l What an ado about things here. What l poor preparation for great eternity. As though q minnow were larger than behemoth, as | though a swallow took wider circuit than an albatross, as though nettle were taller than Lebanon cedar, as though l gnat wore greater than camel, as though a minute were longer than century, as though time were higher, deeper, broader than eternity. So the text which flashed with lightning of wit as Christ uttered it is followed by the crashing thunders os l awful catastrophe to those who make the
 questions of the time greater than the questions of the future the oncoming, overshadowing future. 0 eternity eternityi eternityI